Monday, April 17, 2006

Top 100 San Diego Padres: #92 Donne Wall

Drafted by the Houston Astros in 1989, Donne Wall wouldn't make his Major League debut until September of 1995. Two years later, the Cincinnati Reds claimed him off waivers. Then roughly a month after that he was packaged with Paul Bako to the Detroit tigers in exchange for Melvin Nieves. It would take another eight days before he was packaged with Ryan Balfe and Dan Miceli and sent off to the San Diego Padres in exchange for Trey Beamon and Tim Worrell.

As a member of the Houston Astros, Wall was used as a starter, but had little to no success in that role. The Padres didn't make that mistake. As a reliever for San Diego, Wall put up three of the four most productive seasons of his career. 1998 was his strongest effort and one that helped solidify the Padre bullpen. The next season, Wall regressed roughly half a win, but remained valuable especially for a middle reliever. Two successful seasons seemed to give Bochy more confidence in Wall because in 2000, Donne was used with a great deal more frequency in high leverage situations and he didn't give Boch reason to regret as you can see from his WXRL that year.

Wall's role on the team, that of a middle reliever, likely made him somewhat forgettable, but he was very productive in his time in San Diego. And that's what we're measuring here. I assume more Padre fans remember Eric Owens and Bubba Trammell, but they weren't as valuable as Wall and others who made the list.